Franklin Okumu

Dr. Okumu brings over 20 years of pharmaceutical product development experience to Armis Biopharma. He joined the company as a Product Development Advisor in 2017 leveraging his experience with global pharmaceutical development of innovative drugs, antibiotics and drug device combination products. Prior to his work at Armis, Dr. Okumu was Vice President of the Proprietary Products division of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories (NYSE: RDY) where he contributed to the development and approval of multiple innovative products. Previously Dr. Okumu served a Principal Scientist in the Diabetes Research Unit at Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO), and as Executive Director of Biopharmaceutical Research and Development at DURECT Corporation (NASDAQ: DRRX). Prior to this, Dr. Okumu was the Associate Director of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Optimer Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: OPTR) where he co-invented Fidaxomicin the only locally acting macrocyclic antibiotic approved by the FDA in the past 30 years. Based on this approval Optimer Pharmaceuticals was acquired by Cubist Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CBST, 2013) for $535M which was acquired later by Merck (NYSE: MRK) for $9.5B. Dr. Okumu began his career at Genentech (NASDAQ: DNA) and at Aradigm (NASDAQ: ARDM). Dr. Okumu holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Antioch College (1991) and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from The University of Kansas (1996).